CHAPTER XIIBLACKY SILK
TWENTY minutes after Manzanita Canby had struggled up from the sand into which her leap from Mart’s pony had pitched her, she was throwing the silver-mounted saddle on the back of her pinto mare. She was chapped and spurred now and ready for any meeting.
The fiery little mare leaped forward at the suggestion of spurs about to touch her belly. They dashed out of the gate and sped away over the desert toward the railroad camps.
It was possible that Mart would not readily find the sheriff to show him the pasteboard cover found by the man hunters in the mountains. The sheriff had been investigating in the various camps during the greater part of the afternoon, and by this time—early evening—he must have reached a point some distance up the line. If only she could overtake her brother and in some way manage to wheedle him out of that damning bit of evidence against Halfaman Daisy and Falcon the Flunky.
She had not stopped to reason. She knew now, beyond all doubt, that she loved the flunky of the Mangan-Hatton camp, and, womanlike, she carednot who knew it nor what any one might think. Womanlike, also, she was riding now in unquestioning devotion to protect the man she loved, be he guilty or innocent. The makers of our laws were perhaps wise when they decided it to be unjust for a wife to be compelled to implicate her husband. For if the wife loves the husband it would require more than laws to make her condemn him. Blind justice for men—blind love for women!
On and on she rode, pulling up only when the pinto raced alongside the work in the camp of Jeddo the Crow, where Manzanita saw her black-haired girl friend driving a wheeler team.
Wing o’ the Crow stopped her mules when she saw her bearing down in a cloud of dust. With her pony on her haunches, Manzanita leaned from the saddle when she reached the railroad girl, and asked excitedly:
“Has the sheriff been here, Wing-o?”
Startled black eyes looked up at her as she replied, just above a whisper:
“Yes, why?”
“And my brother, Mart?”
“He rode in, lookin’ for the sheriff, Nita. Wh-what’s wrong?”
“It’s about the—the holdup. Did the sheriff say anything about a pink tie?”
Wing o’ the Crow’s eyes grew wider and morestartled still. “He was carryin’ one—all in a string. It—I know it——”
She came to a stop and bit her lips.
“I know, Wing-o; I know,” Manzanita said. “You think perhaps it belonged to Halfaman, don’t you? I—I’m afraid I think so, too. I’m riding now to try and overtake Mart. There’s something else. Mart has it. If I can get it away from him——”
Wing o’ the Crow was staring at her, her red lips parted.
“Get it! Get it!” she cried. “If it’s bad for Halfaman. Go on! You c’n tell me later. I c’n wait. Halfaman never held up th’ stage. Him an’ your flunky.”
“My flunky! No—they didn’t. I know it. I just know it! But even if they did——”
“That’s right. Even if they did! The sheriff an’ your brother rode on up the line. You oughta ketch th’ kid. Sheriff was here hours before. Cut dust! I c’n wait.”
The pinto leaped forward again, and horse and rider sped for the Mangan-Hatton camp.
Manzanita became tactful as she rode into the bigger camp, though she slackened the mare’s speed but little. The men had stared at her, and some had yelled as she rode past the work. In camp she found Hunt Mangan at the commissary door.
“I’m looking for Mart, Hunt,” she said lightly. “Has he been here?”
“Why the great speed?”
“Oh, the mare’s been up for a day or two. She feels good. Then I want Mart as quick as I can find him.”
“Why, he was here a few minutes ago, looking for the sheriff. He rode on up the line. Has anything new developed in the man hunt? Mart seemed in a hurry, and rode directly on when he found the sheriff wasn’t here.”
“I—I don’t know,” faltered the girl. “You’ll excuse my abruptness to-day. I want to find Mart. Thanks for your help. Now I’ll hurry on.”
Hurry on she did, indeed, for the pinto was covered with sweat and foam as they took the road that followed the new grade at a run.
They neared the buttes. Mart had passed between them, Manzanita knew, else she would have seen him on the level desert across which she now sped along.
Now and then she passed through groups of workmen, who stared curiously at the foam-flecked mare and her rider. Mart could not be so very far ahead, she reasoned, for it was doubtful if he had traveled as swiftly as she had after he had shaken her off. Still, twenty minutes is a long time in a matter of one rider overtaking another, and the girl would not allow the tough little mare to flag.
They passed between the buttes, and here for fiveminutes she was held back by a shot that was scheduled to be fired. There was but the one shot, and as it detonated between the rocky walls she lunged her mare past the astonished man who had stopped her, and, with rocks and earth falling about her, spurred on through the deep cut.
She made three more camps, each time to learn that Mart had ridden on up the line only a few minutes before her arrival. Yes, the sheriff had ridden on ahead of him, hours before.
And so she came to Stlingbloke, with her faltering mare about all in and her rider’s hope receding with each new stopping point.
The ragtown was alight. It was growing dark now. Piano music tinkled in the resorts. There came the sounds of ribald laughter and dancing feet. Stlingbloke was rousing itself from the afternoon siesta.
In the street Manzanita accosted the first man she met.
Yes, a man who said he was the sheriff had been there that afternoon. The sheriff had been riding alone. Her informer had seen nothing of a boy on a bay horse looking for the sheriff.
“But there’s the sheriff now,” said the man, pointing suddenly to a gray horse and rider just jogging into town from the desert to the west.
Now the railroad grade ran almost due north from Stlingbloke, and to have been at the campson up the line the sheriff should have come in from the north; Manzanita wondered.
The sheriff saw her and rode toward her—a big-mustached man with a small, wizened face, seeming smaller still under the big Columbia-shape Stetson that he wore.
“Ain’t you Miss Canby?” he asked, riding up.
“Yes,” replied Manzanita. “I know you, Mr. Glenn. How do you do?”
“Yes, I been to Squawtooth several times. How’s yer dad?”
“Oh, he’s just fine.”
“Why don’t he come up and help us hunt the bandits?”
“He’s pretty busy just now. We’re doing some building over at Little Woman, and he rides there a great deal. That’s our winter camp, you know.”
“Yes, yes. Quite a sight, these here camps. First time I seen ’em. D’ye ride here often, Miss Canby?” He was curiously eying her heaving mare.
“Not much. I’ve been here only once before, in fact.” Then Manzanita made a plunge. “I’m looking for my brother, Martin. Have you seen him?”
“Left him up in the mountains. Did he come down?”
“Yes, this afternoon. And you haven’t seen him?”
“No. I rode on through here and to two campsabove, then cut west across the desert to a water hole, where the second outfit gets water for their stock. I was over there some time; then I cut in straight for this place—made a triangle, see?”
“Have—have you found out anything? You see, I know about the—the tie.”
Again he looked at her speculatively, and studied the mare’s fatigued condition.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I ain’t got anything to say, anyway, Miss Canby—if you’ll excuse me.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I shouldn’t have let my curiosity get the better of me. Well, I must ride on and try to find Martin. We—we want him.”
“Tol’able het up—the mare.”
“Yes, she’s bound to go, and I thought I’d let her work it off.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’ll be peggin’ on, I guess. Ain’t ye pretty far from home this time o’ night, Miss Canby? Maybe ye’d better ride back with me. I’m stayin’ at the next camp below here for to-night.”
He glanced around at Stlingbloke and several curious observers standing in saloon doors.
“Course it ain’t any o’ my business,” he said apologetically, “but ain’t you a bit worried, ’way out here this time o’ day? ’S almost night.”
“Oh, I’ll get along—thanks. I ride lots after dark. I simply must find Mart. Don’t let me detain you.”
He touched a finger to the broad brim of his hat, hitched up his heavy cartridge belt, and rode on through town. Manzanita moved her pinto until tents and sacks hid her from the retreating sheriff, then sat her saddle a moment or two and heaved a great sigh of relief.
For some reason obscure to her the sheriff, after leaving the second camp beyond Stlingbloke, had departed from the right of way and rode westward across the sandy wastes. From the water hole he had mentioned—she knew its location—he had ridden back to the ragtown as the crow flies. Thus she had come upon him before her brother had. Mart probably was still trailing him. At the water hole he doubtless would be told that the sheriff had ridden straight to Stlingbloke, completing his triangle, and Mart at once would continue on here in his trailing. What luck! The sheriff was to spend the night in the next camp below Stlingbloke—two miles away, perhaps. There was no course for her to pursue other than to remain at the town to intercept her brother and in some way rob him of the record of the family tree of Aaron. For many men might wear pink ties, regardless of the tastes of others, but who other than Phinehas Daisy could have written his fantastic rigmarole on that bit of pasteboard? And who in the camps did not know that Mr. Daisy was aproud member of the “begatters”—who did not know that Daisy and The Falcon were friends?
She was at the edge of town farthest from the retreating sheriff. He would not know that she had not ridden on up the line. Her mare was spent, anyway. She needed rest and water.
Manzanita dismounted and found a piece of lath, with which she scraped the foamy sweat from the pinto’s neck and rump and belly. This done, she looked about for a means of at least letting her wet her mouth, and caught sight of a tank wagon in the rear of a big structure, half tent, half boards and corrugated iron.
She saw nothing else that promised water, and, though she dreaded to, she led the mare to the tank.
A man stood in the rear door of the establishment behind which the tank wagon was at rest. She did not by any means like his looks.
“May I turn on a little water?” she asked. “My mare needs it badly.”
At once the man became active. “Sure; sure!” he said with a grin. “I’ll get you a bucket.”
She waited, the pinto pulling the reins and nosing the spigot of the tank.
Directly the man came to her with a galvanized pail. Behind him in the door more men now appeared, and two women with impossibly pink and white faces stood on tiptoe and watched over themen’s shoulders. From behind them came the click of gambling devices and the wheezy complaint of a piano.
The man who brought the bucket wore a black Stetson hat, a cream-colored silk shirt without a tie, and a fancy silk vest. Underneath the vest the shirt bloused comfortably, cow-puncher fashion. He was dark and had a carefully waxed black mustache. His dark eyes seemed small and calculating—a slight cast in one of them. Manzanita remembered him now. He was the man who had watched her so keenly on her first surreptitious visit to Stlingbloke.
“Oh, thank you so much,” she said, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice, for now she was just a little bit afraid of this man’s steady stare.
She attempted to take the bucket. Their hands touched.
“Le’ me draw the water,” he suggested.
“Just a little, please—not over two inches in the bucket. More might hurt her, overheated as she is.”
“Sure! I know. Just a little at first. More pretty soon, maybe.”
He turned on the water, and the pinto frantically nosed him aside to thrust her muzzle into the refreshing downpour. Manzanita stood silent, ill at ease, as the group in the door still gazed at her and laughed occasionally among themselves.
“Where you from, kid?” asked the man.
The red mounted to Manzanita’s forehead in resentment of the unwarranted familiarity. But she thought it the part of wisdom to appear serene.
“I live at Squawtooth,” she replied. And she added significantly: “My brother’s not far from here. I’m waiting for him.”
“Who? The kid that rode through a little while back?”
“Well, maybe he might be called a kid,” she replied, “but he does a man’s work, and—and he can throw a dollar in the air and hit it with a six-gun. For that matter, I can, too,” she added.
“So? Nice little popgun you pack on your hip there. Thirty-eight on a forty-five, ain’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Huh! I usta take thirty-eights for pills when I was feelin’ a little puny.”
“Indeed? Such pills are often good for certain complaints—if they’re administered properly.”
He laughed. “Pretty good!”
“Thank you ever so much now,” said the girl. “She mustn’t have any more at present. Now I’ll ride around in front and wait for my brother.”
“Stick here five minutes and give the little mare another drink.”
“No, thank you. I think that will be too soon.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, perhaps you don’t know her as well as I do.”
“How ’bout yourself, then?”
“I don’t understand,” Manzanita answered, her lips straight. She was reaching for the reins, which he had taken when the mare forced her head into the bucket, and now seemed loath to surrender.
“Why, you ain’t had a drink yourself.”
“I don’t care for any, thanks.” In truth her throat was uncomfortably dry at that very moment. “I’ll take the reins now, please. Thank you again.”
“Kinda anxious, ain’t you?”
She fought back her growing terror. “Perhaps I am. I don’t want to risk missing my brother.”
“Nice little filly. Will she stand?”
“Certainly. But please—I must be going.”
Again she reached for the reins, which he held just out of her grasp. She could not lay hold of them without coming into close contact with him.
“We’ll leave her stand, and you ’n’ me’ll go into Johnny’s place and have a glass o’ beer.”
“‘You ’n’ me’ will do nothing of the sort!” she said hotly. “Will you please hand me those reins?”
She was trembling from head to foot now. From the door she heard the sounds of tittering. Those who occupied it were too far off to hear, but they were able to interpret the meaning of her outstretched hand and the immovable figure of the man.
“What makes you so sore on me, kiddo?” he asked. “Ain’t I treated you like a gentleman?”
“To a certain extent. You’re not doing so now, though. Give me those reins!”
“Aw, come now! Forget the dignity stuff. I’ve seen you before. You and your kid brother was here one day, and the two o’ you was sneakin’ around, peepin’ into dance halls. I guess you was interested, all right, but kinda shy about buttin’ in. Well, there’s nothin’ to be afraid of. Come on in with me. I’ll show you a good time. Ask any of ’em if ‘Blacky’ Silk ain’t a perfect gentleman.”
“If you’re a gentleman you’ll hand me those reins.”
“Aw, cut it out! You gi’me a pain! Come on”—he dropped the reins to the ground—“you ’n’ me’s gota have a couple o’ beers and get acquainted.”
Shaking like a leaf, Manzanita took a step toward the reins, trying to avoid him and at the same time get hold of them.
He waited disarmingly until she stooped for them, then suddenly took her by the shoulders.
With a little scream she straightened, but she held the reins. Indignantly she shook her shoulders, her tremor outmatched by her anger now. But he tried to take her in his arms, grinning maliciously.
Then with all her might she shot a little brown fist to his jaw, and it cracked musically. It wasnot a slap—it was a punch, deliberate and not ineffective. In the instant that he was staggering back, surprised beyond measure, she grasped the saddle horn, and, without throwing the reins over the mare’s neck and ignoring the stirrup, vaulted like an acrobat to a sitting posture in the saddle. When Blacky Silk stepped quickly toward her, his dark eyes alight with anger and determination, he stopped suddenly and looked into the black muzzle of her Colt.
“Perhaps you feel like taking one of your pills now,” she said, her voice cool and steady as the whistle of a valley quail.
Blacky Silk seemed to feel better at once, though his face did not show it. A laugh of derision came from the door of Johnny’s place.
“Go on, Blacky!” they called jeeringly. “Ain’t losin’ interest, are you? What’s the matter all of a sudden?”
The muzzle of the gun was steady. The girl held it on a line with her thigh, pointing straight at his breast—not at his head, proving that she was no amateur. Blacky seemed suddenly to have remembered that when he took .38’s for pills it had occurred in the day before high-power powder had been invented.
“You made me,” she said. “I didn’t want to. But now that you’ve started this thing, I’ll see it all the way if you make another move towardme. I’m a woman, you must remember. A jury couldn’t be got together that wouldn’t acquit me. Think it over.”
Blacky did, then said huskily: “You win, I guess.”
“Then turn around and walk away from me.”
He obeyed her silently, and she touched the mare’s ribs and rode swiftly away from the tank.
Roars of derision sounded behind her as the disappointed Romeo returned to Johnny’s Place.
The triumphant but badly shaken girl reached the street in front and rode before Stlingbloke’s single store. There she dismounted and made a purchase hurriedly, and, back in her saddle, she engaged herself with it and the pencil she always carried in her chaparajos.
She finished just as Mart came riding in from the darkening desert on his snip-nosed bay.
Still pale from her recent experience, Manzanita rode to meet him, calling:
“Mart! Mart!”